“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Thus begins Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” a novel filled with contrasting paradoxes. In my opinion, Rehoboth Beach, the Nation’s Summer Capital, is a wonderful place to live. It’s been referred to as Delaware’s pearl: a place of wide-open beaches with a small-town character that has somehow survived waves of growth. A community that values and remembers what matters.
Sadly, the worst of times for Rehoboth is quietly taking shape – the one we could become if the Atlantic Fields mega-shopping district is approved. We are on course to becoming something closer to a suburban highway interchange. Tens of thousands of vehicles a day coming into a community that lacks the infrastructure to adequately support the influx. An 80% asphalt-and-concrete expanse where 73.5 acres of farmland once stood.
In this Rehoboth, a developer is maximizing parking spaces, maximizing retail square footage, maximizing impermeable surfaces and minimizing just about everything else. No green space, no open space. No workforce housing despite years of council members calling it a priority. Only the narrowest side buffers for long-existing families living next door.
Fairness and common sense are not driving our future. Instead, profit is king.
In “A Tale of Two Cities,” the tragedy unfolds when the needs of everyday citizens are overshadowed by the ambitions of a powerful few. Here in Sussex County, it is not fiction. This project is too big, in the wrong place and has too little regard for the people already living here.
The question becomes: Which Rehoboth do we want to be? One that protects its people, its character and grows with sensible intention? Or a regional shopping destination that overwhelms our roads, harms our neighborhoods and ignores every plea for fairness from the families who already call this place home?
Our Sussex County elected officials, entrusted to safeguard our communities, our roads, our safety and our quality of life, have the power to deny this extreme commercial zoning change. I respectfully implore them to do so.
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